Confined Spaces
by Drowning.Octopus
Summary: (Head Boy / Head Girl AU) - Draco's appointment as Head Boy is quickly spoiled when he finds out that Hermione is his partner. Living together in such a small space DOES present its challenges...but the most difficult challenges are those for which we find ourselves utterly unprepared.


_**Author's note: **Hello, new story! And, true to fashion, I have 0% of it planned out and I have no idea where any of this is going. I don't even know if this will ever turn into something, I am just tentatively dipping back into this whole thing. So! Let's see how this pans out together, shall we?_

_7th year AU_

**_Edit:_**_ I added another section :)_

* * *

He should have known, of course, that it would be her. She, after all, was the most unbearably insufferable know-it-all**—**the most unceasingly annoying ass-kisser—the single most incomparably unholy goody-two-shoes that the school had ever seen. At least _his _position was won for his genuine intellect and leadership skills and not because of some stroke of luck or incompetent last ditch decision of the higher ups. He frowned to himself.

Actually, she was probably pretty qualified for the position, too, I mean, what with defeating the Dark Lord near single-handedly at the age of eleven. And then at twelve. And then...in...every year subsequent to that, but Draco was definitely more qualified. He was _handsome_, for one. The younger children would respect _handsome_.

To be honest, his initial thought upon discovering the identity of his roommate-to-be was to assume she'd slept with the professors in charge of appointing the position, but he hadn't even been able to finish that thought without laughing out loud. Hermione Granger, sleeping with _anyone? _She probably didn't even sleep with a teddy bear for fear of besmirching her precious chastity. He smirked at his own joke, and then immediately glowered. He was utterly upset at the idea of sharing such a small space with one Hermione Granger for an entire year. He'd been hoping for a pretty Slytherin, or even maybe a cute little Ravenclaw. Hell, he'd have preferred Harry Potter himself as Head Girl, witch's robes and all. At least Harry didn't have the shrill little voice of a dying chinchilla. Ever since she'd walked into his train compartment with her face all bright and sunny and the Head Girl badge pinned perfectly to her frumpy lapel, all his elation at being named Head Boy had simply slipped away into nothingness. And so he continued, sitting in his fluffy armchair by the fire, smirking and glowering and smirking and glowering, ruminating angrily and wallowing in self-pity.

He ruminated so angrily and wallowed so thoroughly that he didn't even notice her come in.

"I'm not happy about this either, Malfoy," she reminded him in a patronizing tone. He jumped and turned to face her immediately.

"Did I _ask _for your opinion?" he sneered automatically. She rolled her eyes.

"That'll be enough of _that, _thank you. I'd rather not spend an entire year bickering pettily over every little thing." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Let's have some maturity, shall we?"

Draco grumbled to himself and turned back towards the fire.

"If you don't want to fight with me, then why don't you resign?" he asked sweetly, twisting his face into a saccharine smile. He heard her scoff from the opposite side of the room.

"Give up Head Girl because I don't want to sit next to Malfoy? You _wish _you meant that much to me!" She finished with a little laugh and he found himself swiveled against the back of the chair, on his knees with his elbows resting against the head.

"I wish? The only thing I _wish _is that you weren't here!"

"And I wish the same, Malfoy," she answered without hesitation, "but turns out I am! So, since you're making it _very _clear that we won't be getting along this year, why don't you just ignore me?" Her hand was on her hip and the other on the table as she leant in towards him, eyes half-lidded in the way that mothers address cheeky children. He grit his teeth in annoyance.

"Ignore you for a _year_?!" he repeated, his voice rising.

"Either that or learn to grow up, then," Hermione answered. She flipped her impossibly large hair over one shoulder (an act that barely did a thing because of the sheer volume of the damned mess) and gazed pointedly at him. "A truce is what I'm proposing, Malfoy, seeing as we've got an entire academic season of working, eating, and living together to get through." She breached the forty-foot gap between them for the first time since they'd arrived in the Head Common Room, standing stiffly in front of him and extending a hand. "A truce? Would you agree to that?"

He stared dumbly at her, and then knit his eyebrows together in disbelief. "_No_, I would not agree to that!" he responded incredulously, knocking her hand away from himself. "Are you daft, woman?"

She sighed exasperatedly. "I genuinely don't know why I thought that would have worked," she muttered, more to herself than to the boy opposite her.

"I'D RATHER DIE," he bellowed, ignoring her.

"Alright**—**"

"I'D RATHER_ ACTUALLY _DIE_._"

"Yes, okay, I**—**"

"I'D RATHER HAVE MY SOUL SUCKED OUT BY A DEMENTOR WHILE BEING CHASED BY A HORDE OF HIPPOGRIFFS INTO AN OCEAN FULL OF INFERI WITH MY OWN FATHER HOLDING A TWO-PRONGED**—"**

"_MALFOY_, I get it! Okay!" she bit, pressing the pads of her fingers to her forehead in exasperation. _  
_

He crossed his arms over his chest pointedly. Secretly, he thought the truce was a very good idea indeed. Some kind of forced civility between the two, or a bit less arguing at the very least, could potentially keep him from the utter exhaustion of screaming at her all day and night. It might save his voice for Quidditch practices. It might make the inevitable horror of sharing a living space a bit less horrible in general if he knew she wasn't charming all his things to explode or poisoning his potions with horrible diseases.

But god help him if he ever admitted it.

She was beneath him—that much was true. And she was undoubtedly unworthy of shaking his hand. It wasn't as much her blood status anymore, not to Draco. Rather, it was the idea that she was just _such _a stupid little prissy know-it-all with her nose pointed permanently in the air and her head pointed permanently up her arse. Honestly, she just got to him. She made him angry. She was intelligent, and she was confident despite her less-than-stellar looks _and _her blood status _and _her stupid fucking hair, and above all she treated him like a baby. She thought she was better than him. And it made him angry.

And Merlin knows he lived to make _her _angry.

So a truce was simply out of the question, and that was it.

He pursed his lips decisively.

"So what, then, Malfoy? What's the plan?" she prodded in a businesslike tone, hands on her hips and foot tapping away beside him. She crossed to the front of the armchair, raising both eyebrows as she faced him directly. He sneered and directed his gaze elsewhere, racking his brain.

"I suppose we'll have to do Head duties, won't we?" he asked himself, mumbling quietly. She scoffed.

"Yes, _I suppose," _she rebuked sarcastically.

"...and you'll need the bathroom now and again, I assume."

"I should say so!"

"And I suppose our weekly patrols will more than likely be together," he continued, completely ignoring her.

"More than likely? That's a given, Malfoy," she laughed. He gave her a decided glare before continuing.

"And so that means that ignoring each other _completely _would be somewhat out of the question."

"And you won't have a truce, of course," she interjected, lowering her voice to a barely audible whisper before adding, "prideful swot." He rolled his eyes at her.

"So," he said smartly, standing up so swiftly and with such decision that Hermione took a step back, "all that's left to do is to set the rules!" She stared at him warily but allowed him to continue. He beamed at her, stepping around her in order to address the full room. "First," he began, clapping his hands together. "I shower after every Quidditch practice. If there is no Quidditch practice, I shower every night. It takes me a long while and so I suggest you take mornings." Here he glanced over his shoulder to appraise her disgustedly. "...If you ever _do _shower, of course." Her cheeks and eyes flashed with color and he felt her grit her teeth. He smirked and extended his arm towards the armchair in which he had previously been seated. "This is my chair." He touched his chin thoughtfully. "I also want that one," he added, pointing across the room at a recliner facing a bookshelf with a lamp placed conveniently next to it.

"That's a _couch_," Hermione protested. He tutted her into silence.

"Do not ever enter my room, that goes without saying," he continued haughtily, "and if there ever is a problem you are to knock up to three times and you may call out once. Otherwise, do not bother me." He turned to face her. "I will _not _be your spider-killer, I will _not _reach the shelves too high for you, and I will _not _be a shoulder for you to cry on in your times of trying female passion." She pulled a face at him halfway between disgust and disbelief and he smartly adjusted his tie, raising himself up to full height. He looked down the bridge of his nose at her and smirked. She sucked in a deep breath and he barely had time to be pleased by the effect he had on her before she caught him off guard with both palms pressed against his shoulders. He paused for a moment, eyebrows furrowed, before she caught him off guard again with a disdainful and very aggressive push.

"I think ignoring each other may just be the best option after all," she replied snottily, tossing her hair and sauntering past him to climb the steps of her dormitory.

He followed her with his gaze even after her door closed, absolutely livid.

"Right, NEW RULE!" he screamed finally, his hands clenching into fists at his side. "_Don't you FUCKING touch me!"_

* * *

In time it proved exceedingly more difficult to ignore each other than they'd originally imagined. Draco's night showers often meant that Hermione was subjected to his loud and somewhat less than operatic singing voice, and she would simply _have _to bang on the bathroom door for fear of not getting any work done at all. Hermione's near constant study sessions and her penchant for playing quiet classical music during them meant that Draco awoke in a bad mood at seven o' clock nearly every single morning. They led prefects' meetings together and patrolled weekly together and it was very difficult (and, quite honestly, a bit boring) to attempt those duties without ever once addressing each other. Things transformed nicely as the days progressed to a near-tolerable level of mutual dislike._  
_

And so, as they shifted from endless battles over every little thing into a resenting comfort of respectful hostility, Hermione began wearing her pyjamas out in the Common Room.

It wasn't often, mind, and they were still _Hermione's _pyjamas—meaning homely and dowdy things more likely to be seen in a children's movie about a summer camp than in even the most modest of fantasies—but Draco, to his own surprise, found himself feeling some kind of sick enjoyment in seeing her out of her primly pressed school clothes. No, it wasn't anything obliquely sexual, he assured himself. God help him, he mused, if he ever began to find something so frigid and unattractive even remotely sexual. Surely if he were looking to creatures like that it would mean he'd have lost his touch with women altogether. And he had quite a touch with women, indeed.

Increasingly often, for example, as Draco began to settle into his position and into his new accommodations, he found himself resuming his role as chief entertainer of young witches, often bringing the girls to his bedroom late in the night when he was sure Hermione was asleep. At first he assumed she never noticed, but as time wore on and he became sloppier with his concealment, a different kind of thought consumed him. There was no way she didn't know. After a month or two, he was bloody loud about his entrances (often the Firewhisky had a bit to do with that), and the girls he led up the steps to his bedroom were sometimes bloody loud as well, despite his efforts to keep their mouths occupied. (He did have _some _semblance of respect, after all.)

No, Hermione knew. And that meant either one of two things—she was too embarrassed to ask him to stop, or she _didn't mind._


End file.
